Pope to visit Edinburgh on September 16th

Will he bless the Arbo Square or the heavy roller?
Will any deceased Crossers be Canonised?

or will he just annoy Bimbo with his chat?

Wins for 2nds and 3rds; Bad Loss for 1sts

Results summary-details to follow.

1sts (at Arbo)
Holy Cross 131ao
C. Ellis 70
A. McDonald 4/22

Fauldhouse 136-3
Z. Ali 66
Bainbridge 2/23

brief mention in the Evening News:
http://sport.scotsman.com/cricket/Fauldhouse-see-off-Holy-Cross.5496312.jp

2nds (At Roseburn -artificial)
Won by about 8 runs
S. Bonfield 38, A. Cydzik 36, J. Bates 23
S. Bonfield 5/14.

3rds (at Inverleith Park-Artificial)
Drummond Trinity 2nds 138-9
Holy Cross 3rds 139-8
S. Russell 38, R. Ellis 23, U. Shazad 18


very exciting match won with 1 ball to spare: with Popey hitting
the winning runs via a glorious...er...gloved nurdle to short third man.
From the few overs I saw, some good batting and running by Usama and
Ellis Snr, with the latter doing his best 'Dean Jones in the 2nd tied test' impression.
Good to see the thirds up at Arbo-though a bit dissapointing that none of their opposition
made it.

Youthful Cross Prevail

Despite the rather muddy pitch we had an enjoyable friendly vs the Muffers in a a match in which an attempt was made to break the record for the 'most people playing whilst smoking' (I counted five; though Coco -as usual-smoked enough for 11 normal men).

The Cross fielded an unusually youthful and athletic side - with a few Cross veterans (McGill, Lawrie, Bates, Ellis) making up the numbers.
Skipper McGill prevailing against Don Wilkie in the battle of the cantankerous er.. captains.

A fluent start from the inform pair of Nipun Metha and C. J. Ellis (both retired on 30) followed by other useful contributions from 'Psycho' Bates (as he is known to Muffers), Vikram and Nawaz took us to 144.

Good bowling performance with good spells from Vikram, Burgess, McGill (adding to his long list of international victims), Bates, Nipun, and particularly Nawaz kept Mufs to just over a hundred -despite some fine striking from one of their openers (Anand Venkatesh). (Though he almost fell to an attempt for catch of the millennium from Andy G/J Pope-they attempted something along the lines of: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWO5MO8z4ks )

Some good keeping from Ken -including a nice stumping (!!).

BTW can the person who borrowed my bat at the weekend and put a rather large crack right through the middle of it....

Opening Win for E. C. 's men

Edinburgh University vs Holy Cross at Peffermill (18/4/09).




Holy Cross 1st XI 153 ao
S. Pickering 27, N. Ali 25, E. Smith 18, R. Bainbridge 18*,
S. Bonfield 15, P. Kumar 11, Astley 10.

Hamilton 8 overs, 3/11
Ruswa 8 overs, 4/44
Pope, 8 overs, 0/25

Edinburgh University 118 ao.
F. Denku 53

Kumar, 8 overs, 3/27
Bonfield, 7.1 overs, 3/21
Bainbridge, 8 overs, 2/26
Astley, 8 overs, 1/23
Ellis, 7 overs, 0/15

In contrast to previous years, this game took place in temperatures comfortably above freezing (the final stages even being played out in warm sunshine). The early-season pitch made fluent strokeplay difficult: 153 was a good total - especially after we had been reduced to 98-7.

As the figures illustrate, a solid all-round display with contributions coming from throughout the side. Encouraging debuts from Nadeem and Praveen and a decent fielding effort given the rutted outfield. Admittedly the University side was a below strength one, but still contained some good cricketers (Denku's knock was a fine one).

Next Saturday the 1st XI hope to build on this victory with a fixture against Westquarter (away).